The Ætheistic Empire of Steampunk Rationalists (T.A.E.S.R.)

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Comment by Zebulon Vitruvius Pike on May 7, 2013 at 11:13am

Daniel Loxton has a posting at the Skepticblog with a reprint of “The Rough Fist of Reason” from 1916, one from an apparent series of detective stories from “Strange Cases of Magnum, Scientific Consultant” by Max Rittenberg. The main character is protrayed as a jerk in the same way that rationalists Sherlock Holmes and Gregory House are also portrayed as jerks. There is a bit of a dichotomy there. They want to put forward rationalism but can't help but go soft of people's firmly held but still irrational beliefs. I wonder if this is by design.

For example, I know that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was not the rationalist that his character Sherlock Holmes was. He believed in the Cottingley faeries even when they were clearly exposed as fakes and believed that his friend Harry Houdini had mystical powers in spite of being told by Houdini himself that they were tricks. Holmes was created as a parody or caricature of the ultra-rationalist, supremely reasoning and rational but also with every flaw stereotypically attributed to such people "without souls".

And it continues to this day except that now they seem to add a level of actual mental disorder to the mix. Benedict Cumberbatch's Holmes is not merely a rationalist but is presented as having Aspergers or as a "high-functioning" autistic. I have had these particular "accusations" attributed to me in an attempt to discredit my arguments or tone-troll me into silence.

I consider it a good day when the worst that is heaped against me is that I am merely a "jerk" for challenging people's firmly held but still irrational beliefs.

Comment by Zebulon Vitruvius Pike on February 18, 2013 at 5:06pm

Comment by Zebulon Vitruvius Pike on January 9, 2013 at 8:32am

Well, Ms. Jacoby's book was released just yesterday so the media has only been covering it at all since then (and will have forgotten about it by later today).

As to my panel, first I have a relatively quick and easy presentation I want to develop on the aether. After that, I have at least one book to finish (Species, Serpents, Spirits, and Skulls: Science at the Margins in t...) before I can really start work on the presentation. I could imagine having it ready for the fall con schedule (TeslaCon) since most of the cons I can get to are scheduled in the spring and I probably don't have time to do the kind of job I want in that short a period of time.

Comment by Artemenia Fenne on January 8, 2013 at 11:05am

Hello all. I'm on a hiatus from college for a bit, so catching up here.

I wanted to say that I love the idea of a panel on quack medicine/science and the like, Zebulon. At which con might you eventually present this?

Also, very happy to hear that Ms. Jacoby has released another book, especially on one of my favorite historical figures, Ingersoll. I wonder how this has escaped my attention? Probably from being so buried in studies. I will have to check it out!

Comment by Captain Maximillian Drake on January 8, 2013 at 10:42am

People often make the mistake of thinking about the people and cultures of the past out of their time, place, space. This is a major mistake because applying modern thinking to people who had no reason think that way leads to mistakes in understanding history. Historians and others who study history understand this well, however, it is amazing how many of your average people don't.

An good example of this is the fact that racism only truly became generally rather unacceptable(sadly, racism is not gone by any means) in the US in the second half of the 20th century(I leave the time-frame inexact as this is a concept that is for sure relative and is a long slow cultural process making the beginning and ending of it near on impossible to nail down in a concrete fashion), yet you get lots of people who are appalled at things that were said and done before this time, that were very racist and commonplace for the time. I will admit that part of the problem is also the fact that history is very poorly taught in High school and adds to the problem.

As a History major with a BA in the subject it is good to see that there are others out there who understand this concept and take the time to articulate it.

Thank you Michele

Comment by Zebulon Vitruvius Pike on January 7, 2013 at 10:10am

Susan Jacoby, author of Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism and the subsequent The Age of American Unreason has just released a new biography of Robert Green Ingersol called The Great Agnostic. She was interviewed on NPR and also had a op-ed in the NYT this week called The Blessings of Atheism.

Comment by Her Serene Highness Michele on December 22, 2012 at 8:33pm

regarding science and pseudo-science: I agree with the esteemed Mr. Pike. We often like to see people from previous times as having been foolish and backwards when they were no more (or less) so than ourselves. It is much more foolish now, for instance to doubt evolution that it would have been in 1860, and yet I have met quite a few people, even within university settings, who have managed to do so. We often forget that contrary to the common view of the 19th Century, large cities were extremely cosmopolitan, ethnically diverse, and filled with people who, in part because they had no aethernet, television or radio to distract them, often attended scientific and other improving lectures of a thoughtful kind. Ladies in both small and large towns and cities often invited scientific speakers to lecture on a variety of subjects. i dare say that in some cases the ladies who were members of literary societies and other sororities were more 'up' on modern thinking than their husbands, who often had little time for such improving matters.

Comment by Her Serene Highness Michele on December 22, 2012 at 8:25pm

Good evening. While I am not an atheist (I consider myself to be more of an agnostic with leanings toward the more rational parts of Zen Buddhism and Roman Catholicism) I am a freethinker. My Duchy is primarily roman Catholic, but we have  acceptance of all beliefs that are not harmful to others. 

Comment by Zebulon Vitruvius Pike on December 17, 2012 at 12:57pm

"I didn't did welcome him, though."

You can't go back and edit these things, unfortunately. My larger world requires a larger brain on my part.

Comment by Zebulon Vitruvius Pike on December 17, 2012 at 7:59am

Went to a skeptics Festivus party last night and wore my Fez-O-Rama Clockwork fez. When asked why I was wearing a fez, I said that it was Feztivus. And then apologized for the pun. I had only realized the pun just before I said it. It was not the reason I chose to wear a fez in the first place.

A long time friend of mine showed up unexpectedly. I had always known him to be a somewhat evangelical Christian, son of a minister, devout, the whole nine yards. He said that in coming out as an athesit he thought he should meet up with local people. Again, completely unexpected. I didn't quiz him on his loss of faith, I figured it was [probably better for him to be speaking to people he didn't know to manage that transition. I didn't welcome him, though.

"You have take your first step into a larger world."

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